Hermit Weekend

As I write this, it’s Sunday afternoon and I realize we haven’t left the house in over 48 hours. All in all, being sick on the weekend really worked out. We happened to have enough food from Sam’s to keep us alive, although there wasn’t any milk. Boy, for having a cold, I sure seemed to cook a lot of food. Eggs and sausage for breakfast both days (since there’s no milk), a weird throw-together soup (to use up some leftover rice and vegetables), curry last night (to use up the rest of the rice and vegetables), chili for dinner tonight, and of course – Saturday’s bread.

I’m encouraged by this batch. I made it in a casserole dish to avoid the plastic smell. The dough wasn’t as wet, though I think I might need to up the amount of yeast in it. Good, seriously crunchy crust – almost dangerous to chew. What I have learned is: don’t make this bread unless you have a really awesome soup or stew standing by. In my book, bread is for dunking. Both times I had wonderfully dippable bread made, but inferior soup to dip it in. Ah, there’s always next weekend.

I made 10 dozen sugar/butter cookies yesterday — the real thin ones. My son’s friends came over last night to watch the Ravens get slaughtered once again & said “Mmmm, Christmas cookies.” I said, “Help yourself” This morning there was note on my kitchen table.

Dear Miss Peggy,

Whoops, we ate all the cookies. Please make more … we’ll be back soon.

It’s from Brad’s lemon pudding story. His comment is about the mixer: “I got my super-awesome mixer when my friendsâ€™ house caught on fire. The fire was in the basement under their kitchen, and the insurance guy called their whole kitchen a loss. It just had some soot on it. They bought all new stuff. I could keep any soot-covered item I wanted. I got a blender, toaster, bread machine, mixer, and George Foreman grill. Thank you, Mike and Sarah.
(I should light my friendsâ€™ houses on fire more often.)”